Page 89 of Dream Lake

“Alexander,” he explained. “And this…” A low, erotic tickle. “This is my middle name.”

“Wh-what is it?”

She felt him smile against her skin.

“Guess,” he murmured.

“I can’t. Oh, please—”

“I’ll tell you,” he murmured, “as long as you don’t come before I finish.”

Impossible to lock the pleasure out. Impossible to ignore the sensations rushing so hard and fast. She strained and stiffened, gripping his shoulders. The shudders began, pleasure spilling in waves, each crest rolling higher until she thought she might pass out. He gathered her against him, took her sobs into his mouth, brought her through the feeling and spun it out even longer.

The release was so absolute that Zoë couldn’t move for minutes afterward, her limbs twitching as if with an electric current. Alex began a leisurely project of kissing her from head to toe. On the way back up, he parted her legs with deliberate caresses, his mouth skimming up the tender inside of her thigh until she jolted.

“You don’t need to do that,” she said, twisting. “I’ve already… no, really. Alex—”

He looked up at her across the rapid rise and fall of her stomach. “Area of expertise,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but…” She stuttered as he gripped her legs behind the knees, pushing them up and apart. “You can ruin a soufflé by overworking the batter.”

His quiet laugh vibrated against the most sensitive part of her, causing her legs to quiver. “You haven’t been overworked,” he murmured. “Yet.” He nuzzled against her, his shaven cheek gently rasping the delicate skin. She struggled to breathe, her heart pounding in a violent rhythm.

“Turn off the light?” she pleaded, a fierce blush racing over every inch of her.

A slow shake of his head, his mouth nudging deeper. She fell back with a little yelp, startled by the slippery-hot stroke of his tongue.

“Shhh,” he whispered, right against her, and the rush of his breath inflamed her even more. Another stroke… a teasing flutter… a swirling taste inside. She gripped handfuls of the flowered duvet, her thoughts dissolving in the burning physical awareness of what he was doing to her. He played with her deliberately, paying attention to every moan and twitch and squirm.

Eventually he lifted his head and whispered, “More.” But the word was tipped upward in a question, and he waited for her reply.

“Yes.” Anything he wanted. Anything at all.

Alex left the bed, and she heard the sounds of his jeans dropping to the floor, and the efficient rip of one of the foil packets on the nightstand. He returned to her, lowering his body over hers, the hair on his chest teasing her breasts. Her breath hastened as she felt the intimate pressure of him.

He settled deeper, every movement careful and easy. She moaned as she felt her body yielding to the steady pressure.

“Am I hurting you?” she heard him whisper.

She shook her head blindly. The sensation was overpowering, but he was so gentle, filling her slowly, letting her take him by degrees. And all the while he brushed kisses against her mouth and throat, whispering that she was sweet, soft, beautiful, that nothing had ever felt this good, nothing ever would again.

It was like a dream, this slow, inexorable possession, both of them intent on coaxing her body to take as much of him as she could. And then he was sealed against her, and her back was flat against the bed, her body weighted and impaled. She turned her face into the brutal swell of his bicep, his skin salt-flavored and delicious against her parted lips. He began to rock against her, a lascivious friction that prodded and rubbed and caressed. The pleasure was shattering. She stiffened, her legs spreading as she was thrown into a blinding climax. His thrusts lengthened, centering straight and deep, and then Alex shuddered, and held her as if the world were about to end.

***

“Tell me,” she said a long time later, in the dark. Her voice was lower than usual, liquid, as if it had been heated to a melting point.

Alex’s hand wandered idly over her sated body. “Tell you what?”

“Your middle name.”

He shook his head.

She tugged gently at his chest hair. “Give me a hint.”

He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her fingers. “It’s a U.S. president.”

She traced the fine, firm edge of his upper lip. “Past or present?”

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